Education and National Unity. The Education System and its role in the Nation Building Process in Contemporary South Africa

Abstract

The education system worked as an efficent tool in legitimizing Afrikaner nationalism during Apartheid. After the end of Apartheid, South Africa made a transition towards democracy and a unified rainbow nation. This case study investgates how the education system is utilized in the current nation building process in South Africa, by looking at the analytical categories and two levels, the government level and the school level. The theoretical contributions from Stein Rokkan, Anthony Smith and Hirschman works as analytical tools in the thesis. The data material was collected during a fieldwork in South Africa, and consists mainly of interviews from the school level. A vast majority of the informants claim affirmative action to be a major obstacle for the curent nation building process. The policy creates low senses of national idenrity among non-black citizenz and ultimately low senses of loyalty, which affects citizens` choice of emigrating. Futhermore, this study argues that the lack of educational Equity is a most precarious problem in order for South Africa to succed in nation building throug their education system. Lastly, the thesis finds constitutional-democratic Identity best suitable for the basis of a New, national Identity.